“His lordship is in his bath, sir. Shall I put you through?”
“Please,” said Parker.
The telephone clucked again. Presently Lord Peter’s voice came faintly, “Hullo!”
“Did the landlady mention where Bertha Gotobed was employed?”
“Yes- she was a waitress at the Corner House. Why this interest all sudden? You snub me in my bed, but, but you woo me in my bath. It sounds like a music-hall song of the less refined sort. Why, oh why?”
“Haven’t you seen the papers?”
“No. I leave these follies till breakfast-time. What’s up? Are we ordered to Shanghai? or have they taken sixpence off the income-tax?”
“Shut up, you fool, it’s serious. You’re too late.”
“What for?”
“Bertha Gotobed was found dead in Epping Forest this morning.”
“Good God! Dead? How? What of?”
“No idea. Poison or something. Or heart failure. No violence. No robbery. No clue, I’m going down to the Yard about it now.”
“God forgive me, Charles. D’you know, I had a sort of awful feeling when you said that ad. could do no harm. Dead. Poor girl! Charles, I feel like a murderer. Oh, damn! and I’m all wet. It does make one feel so helpless. Look here, you spin down to the Yard and tell ’em what you know and I’ll join you there in half a tick. Anyway, there’s no doubt about it now.”
“Oh, but, look here. It may be something quite different. Nothing to do with your ad.”
“Pigs may fly. Use your common sense. Oh! and Charles, does it mention the sister?”
“There was a letter from her on the body by which they identified it. She got married last month and went to Canada.”
“That’s saved her life. She’ll be in absolutely horrible danger, if she comes back. We must get hold of her and warn her. And find out what she knows. Good-bye. I must get some clothes on. Oh, hell!”
Cluck! the line went dead again, and Mr. Parker, abandoning the kippers without regret, ran feverishly out of house and down Lamb’s Conduit Street to catch a diver tram to Westminster.
The Chief of Scotland Yard, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, was a very old friend of Lord Peter’s. He received that agitated young man kindly and listened with attention to his slightly involved story of cancer, wills, mysterious solicitors and advertisments in the agony column.
“It’s a curious coincidence,” he said, indulgently, “and I can understand your feeling upset about it. But you may set your mind at rest. I have the police-surgeon’s report, and he is quite convinced that the death was perfectly natural. No signs whatever of any assault. They will make an examination, course, but I don’t think there is the slightest reason to suspect foul play.”
“But what was she doing in Epping Forest?”
Sir Andrew shrugged gently.
“That must be inquired into, of course, Still- young people do wander about, you know. There’s a fiancé somewhere. Something to do with the railway, I believe. Collins has gone down to interview him. Or she may have been with some other friend.”
“But if the death was natural, no one would leave a sick or dying girl like that?”
“You wouldn’t. But say there had been some running about- some horse-play- and the girl fell dead, as these heart cases sometimes do. The companion may well have taken fright and cleared out. It’s not unheard of.”
Lord Peter looked unconvinced.
“How long has she been dead?”
“About five or six days, our man thinks. It was quite by accident that she was found then at all; it’s quite an unfrequented part of the Forest. A party of young people were exploring with a couple of terriers, and one of the dogs nosed out the body.”
“Was it out in the open?”
“Not exactly. It lay among some bushes- the sort of place where a frolicsome young couple might go to play hide-and-seek.”
“Or where a murderer might go to hide and let the police seek,” Wimsey.
“Well, well. Have it your own way,” said Sir Andrew, smiling. “If it was murder, it must have been a poisoning job, for, as I say, there was not the slightest sign of a wound or a struggle. I’ll let you have the report of the autopsy. In the meanwhile, if you’d like to run down there with Inspector Parker, you can of course have any facilities you want. And if you discover anything, let me know.”
Wimsey thanked him, and collecting Parker from an adjacent office, rushed him briskly down the corridor.
“I don’t like it,” he said, “that is, of course, it’s very gratifying to know that our first steps in psychology have led to action, so to speak, but I wish to God it hadn’t been quite such decisive action. We’d better trot down to Epping straight away, and see the landlady later. I’ve got a new car, by the way, which you’ll like.”
Parker took one look at the slim black monster, with its long rakish body and polished-copper twin exhausts, and decided there and then that the only hope of getting down to Epping without interference was to look as official as possible and wave his police authority under the eyes of every man in blue along the route. He shoe-horned himself into his seat without protest, and was more unnerved than relieved to find himself shoot suddenly ahead of the traffic- not with the bellowing roar of the ordinary racing engine, but in a smooth, uncanny silence.
“The new Daimler Twin-Six,” said Lord Peter, skimming dexterously round a lorry without appearing to look at it. “With a racing body. Specially built… useful…gadgets… no row- hate row…like Edmund Sparkler… very anxious there should be no row… Little Dorrit… remember… call her Mrs. Merdle… for that reason… presently we’ll see what she can do.”
The promise was fulfilled before their arrival at the spot where the body been found. Their arrival made a considerable sensation among the little crowd which business or curiosity had drawn to the spot. Lord Peter was instantly pounced upon by four reporters and a synod of Press photographers whom his presence encouraged in the hope that the mystery might turn out to be a three-column splash after all. Parker, to his annoyance, was photographed in the undignified act of extricating himself from “Mrs. Merdle.” Superintendent Walmisley came politely to his assistance, rebuked the onlookers, and led him to the scene of action.
The body had been already removed to the mortuary, but a depression in the moist ground showed clearly enough where it had lain. Lord Peter groaned faintly as he saw it.
“Damn this nasty warm spring weather,” he said, with feeling, “April showers- sun and water- couldn’t be worse. Body much altered, Superintendent?”
“Well, yes, rather, my lord, especially in the exposed parts. But there’s no doubt about the identity.”
“I didn’t suppose there was. How was it lying?”
“On the back, quite quiet and natural-like. No disarrangement of clothing, or anything. She must just have sat down when she felt herself bad and fallen back.”
“Mnn. The rain has spoilt any footprints or signs on the ground. And it’s grassy. Beastly stuff, grass, eh, Charles?”
“Yes. These twigs don’t seem to have been broken at all, Superintendent.”
“Oh, no,” said the officer, “no signs of a struggle, as I pointed out in my report.”
“No- but if she’d sat down here and fallen back as you suggest, don’t you think her weight would have snapped some of these young shoots?”
The Superintendent glanced sharply at the Scotland Yard man.
“You don’t suppose she was brought and put here, do you, sir?”
“I don’t suppose anything,” retorted Parker, “I merely drew attention to a point which I think you should consider. What are these wheel-marks?”
“That’s our car, sir. We backed it up here and took her up that way.”
“And all this trampling is your men too, I suppose?”
“Partly that, sir, and partly the party as found her.”
“You noticed no other person’s tracks, I suppose?”